The crying game

¡§Texts both inform us of the social identities available to us, and problematize them; both police our social selves and subvert them.¡¨

Both texts, The Crying Game by Neil Jordan and Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas, use

characters within the discourse to project social identities that have been

problematized due to social constraints. Throughout this essay, I will focus on

sexuality, as this type of social identity has been depicted as a central theme in both

texts. The characters from the texts work to, police and subvert their own sexual

identities within their social milieu.

¡§To claim an identity as a homosexual is to claim a place in a system of social

regulation¡¨ (Connell & Dowsett, 1992). I would firstly like to establish the fact that

homosexuality, in its most general sense, has been argued to have been socially

constructed, therefore sexuality, in this case homosexuality, has to be considered a

form of social identity. I support this with Freud¡¦s theory that sexuality is a result of

social processes whether it be within the family, cultural, class etc., all such processes

assist in forming a particular sexual identity, ¡§ sexualities are not received as a

package¡K.is arrived at by a highly variable and observable process of construction,

not by an ¡¥unfolding¡¦ of the natural; and that social process is deeply implicated into

this construction.¡¨ (Connell & Dowsett, 1992).

The Crying Game and Loaded, exhibit sexual identities yet in different ways. ¡§Liberal

Humanism¡¨ was concerned with universal humanism which tended to homogenise

various types of gays and lesbians. It was ¡§Identity Politics¡¨, which was bench-

marked in western countries throughout the 1960¡¦s, that appealed to Liberal

Humanism and saw that everybody had a right to express themselves and their

identities. It was this recognition that distinguished identities within the ¡§homosexual

identity¡¨. The increase of sexual personae, diversified drag queens, dykes, macho

gays, and from The Crying Game, transvestites. Throughout the novel Loaded, These

diversities of homosexual identities were captured. The central character, Ari,

repeatedly makes the distinction between these identities and refuses to be

homogenised into such a broad identity, ¡§I hate the word gay. I hate the word

homosexual.¡¨ Ari would be defined as...

... middle of paper ...

...eks.¡¨ Ari admits that this is because the

Greek culture is renowned for their gossip and the fact that he is gay would somehow

get back to his family, ¡§Someone may know a friend of my parents, or know an uncle.

Greeks have big mouths and word can get around.¡¨ It is this example that shows that

relation between a person¡¦s sexual identity and cultural identity cannot be separated

and thus form a trap.

Through examples of identity, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and the body from both the

film The Crying Game and the book Loaded, I have endeavoured to reveal how social

conventions problematize certain identities. Focusing on sexual identities from both

texts, it is seen that characters police their social selves and subvert them using their

¡§homosexual identity¡¨.

Bibliography

„h Loaded, Christos Tsiolkas, 1998

„h The Crying Game, Neil Jordan, 1992

„h Cultural Studies and the New Humanities, Fuery & Mansfield, 1997

„h Rethinking Sex, Connell & Dowsett, 1992

„h Gender As Seriality: Thinking About Women as a Social Collective, Iris Marion Young, 1997

„h The Internationalization of Gay and Lesbian Identities, Dennis Altman, 1998